Educational toy



D. E. JOHNSON EDUCATIONAL TOY Jan. '18, 1949.

Filed Oct. 5, 1946 INVENTOR. .Daroiby Efobnson BY I HTTYS Patented Jan. 18, 1949 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE EDUCATIONAL TOY Dorothy E. Johnson, Sacramento, Calif.

Application October 5, 1946, Serial No. 701,556

1 Claim.

This invention relates to an educational toy for children.

The object of the invention is to provide a toy for very small children which will have the appeal of a toy structure, but which at the same time may be made useful in gradually teaching the child such things as the ability to count, letters of the alphabet, etc.

A further object of the invention is to produce a simple and inexpensive device, and yet one which will be exceedingly effective for the purpose for which it is designed.

These objects are accomplished by means of such tructure and relative arrangement of parts as will fully appear by a perusal of the following specification and claim.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of one of the toys.

Fig. 2 is a top plan view of a number of the toys assembled in order for educational purposes.

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary view of the connector bar used in assembling the toys for educational purposes.

Referring now more particularly to the characters of reference on the drawings, the toy itself comprises a substantially fiat block I mounted on wheels 2; the block I having a transverse recess 3 which gives to the wheel-mounted block the appearance of a vehicle with its seating compartment. A number of these toy units are provided and on the top of each are certain indicia, such as letters of the alphabet or numerals, as shown, corresponding elements being disposed on corresponding parts of the blocks; that is, the

letters of the alphabet are shown here as being on the longer portion of the body of the vehicle, while the numerals are shown on the shorter portion.

It will be obvious that the toy unit itself will have appeal to a child, and when it is desired to use the same for their educational value, a number of toy units may be joined together by placing a bar 4 through the slots 3 of a number of the toy units disposed side by side, and when this is done the blocks may be arranged in such order that the letters of the alphabet will follow in proper order to teach the child the correct sequence of the letters of the alphabet and how to count.

It will also be obvious that the same arrange- 2 ment may be useful to teach spelling by so disposing the blocks that the letters of the alphabet will be arranged to spell out words when connected by the bar 4, and similarly as the child gets a little older, the same toy units may be used to teach addition or the like.

From the foregoing description it will be readily seen that there has been produced such a device as substantially fulfills the objects of the invention, as set forth herein.

While this specification sets forth in detail the present and preferred construction of the device, still in practice such deviations therefrom may be resorted to as do not form a departure from the spirit of the invention, as defined in the appended claim.

Having thus described the invention, the following is claimed as new and useful, and upon which Letters Patent are desired:

In combination, a plurality of toy units, each unit comprising a relatively flat block, wheels journaled on the sides of the block and supporting the same, the block being provided with a groove cut downwardly from the upper face of the block and in substantial parallelism with the wheel axes transversely of the longitudinal axis of the block, and a bar to be positioned in said slots to line the blocks up in side by side parallel relation; the top faces of the blocks containing selectec educational indicia.

DOROTHY E. JOHNSON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 21,798 Hill 1- Oct. 12, 1858 1,249,967 Kawasaki Dec. 11, 1917 1,385,154 Shields July 19, 1921 1,668,360 Fisher May 1, 1928 1,931,139 Warren Oct. 17, 1933 2,091,710 Hyde Aug. 31, 1937 2,218,394 Elliott Oct. 15, 1940 2,383,441 Beile Aug. 28, 1945 2,393,223 Gilbert Apr. 9, 194.6

FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 489,079 France Aug. 20, 1918 

